Over time the energy demand of the residential sector has increased significantly. Most modern homes contain a myriad of appliances that are powered by electricity, including dishwashers, toasters, air conditioners, and televisions. A modern home is almost constantly consuming electricity, but the magnitude of such consumption often varies depending on the time of year, week, and even varies drastically over the course of a day. Most consumers are only vaguely aware of the magnitude of their energy consumption at any given time.
Electric appliances that are promoted as being highly energy efficient have been brought to market in recent years. This is due, in part, to the rising consumer cost of electric energy, increasing concerns regarding the availability of resources necessary to generate electric energy, and the advance of technology. Unfortunately, most consumers are unaware of the difference in energy consumption and efficiency between a newer, more efficient electric appliance and an older electric appliance.
Moreover, as stated above, modern homes have a multitude of electric appliances of a multitude of types. With so many appliances, it is difficult to know which appliances have the largest impact on energy consumption. Most consumers are unaware of which of their appliances are most responsible for their energy cost.
To promote energy conservation in the home, federal and state governments have established minimum efficiency standards, weatherization subsidies, tax credits on programmable thermostats and urge consumers to allow higher in home temperatures in the summer and lower in home temperatures in the winter. One of the difficulties in promoting energy conservation is that few people are aware of the amount of energy they consume or the cost.
There are examples of devices and systems for monitoring energy consumption in the prior art. U.S. Pat. No. 6,956,500 to Ducharme et al. describes a device and method for measuring energy usage and electricity costs in real time. The device includes a camera assembly adapted to detect the velocity data of the rotating wheel disk on an electric power meter. The velocity data is sent by wireless transmission to an indoor display unit. The indoor display unit will display real-time electricity consumption.
The device described in Ducharme et al. suffers from significant drawbacks, however. First, the reliability and accuracy of the data generated by the camera assembly is doubtful and can be easily compromised by, for example, weather conditions. Ducharme et al. do disclose use of a weather shield, but this weather shield would not prevent, and indeed may exacerbate, the negative effects of heavy wind on the alignment of the device.
Other energy consumption monitoring systems utilize the existing electricity circuits of the building to transmit energy consumption data from measuring units to display units which are connected to standard wall sockets on the electricity circuit. One such device is described in U.S. Pat. No. 7,043,380 Rodenberg III et al. These systems also have significant disadvantages. First, the display unit is necessarily tied to at least one electric outlet. Second, many modern homes and businesses have more than one electricity circuit, and any data signal transmitted from the measurement units may not be available in portions of the building which are on different electricity circuits.
What is needed, therefore, is a system for monitoring electricity consumption that enables a home or business owner to readily and easily monitor and display energy consumption data in any part of the home or business. What is also needed is a system for monitoring electricity consumption that provides a display that alerts the homeowner when energy was being consumed and informed the homeowner of the significance of such consumption. What is further needed is a system for monitoring energy consumption that is capable of acquiring data from the Internet for analysis and comparison with the consumption data acquired by the system.